For its late spring production, Touring Theatre revives three favorites from its 1990’s repertoire. The new production, Family Affairs, pulls stories from the company’s earlier compilations and merges them in a totally new production that features works by three masters of fiction: Lee Smith, Alice Walker and Eudora Welty. The stories, a continuing link in Touring Theatre’s on-going Kinfolks Series, are connected by their focus on familial relationships in transition. The stories present a wife, a mother and a sister, respectively, as they respond to infidelity and change in the context of their family. One expresses confusion about her own actions, another flails against changing societal values, while the third speaks in no uncertain terms from her limited and self-serving perspective. Whatever the tone, whatever the point of view, audiences will find themselves chuckling, then laughing as the tales progress.

The stories will be performed by four women who have been chosen to be a part of a two-season seminar that focuses on the unique style of performance that over the years, Brenda Schleunes has developed for Touring Theatre. In the first part of the seminar, funded by the Tannenbaum-Sternberger Foundation, the women will follow the decision-making processes involved in selection, compilation, adaptation and direction, as Schleunes prepares these stories for performance. In the second part of the seminar, the four women will make their own decisions as they continue to study the processes involved in producing a new work for Touring Theatre.